


Max's Last Stand

by seabook



Category: The Long Dark (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:15:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22561597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabook/pseuds/seabook
Summary: Nature is unkind. The story of a loot cache reliably found in The Long Dark.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Max's Last Stand

**Author's Note:**

> "[Max's Last Stand](https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Max%27s_Last_Stand) is directly south of Trapper's Homestead in a clearing. Beneath a lone tree, a frozen corpse (presumably Max) lies face down in the snow."

Max's boots crunched in the old snowfall. Trees groaned and bent in the chilly winter wind. Frigid claws raked through Max's windbreaker, his soul burned with purpose. He worked the bolt of his Lee-Enfield rifle and felt the icicle smooth _whick_ of a cartridge cycle into the chamber. He had notched his belt tighter than ever before. Max could barely remember when he last ate processed food. Most meals were rose-hip tea, cat tail heads, and lake fish. If he was lucky, maybe a rabbit caught in a snare, itself made of semi-edible cured animal guts and sticks. Climbing through the woods, he had slipped down icy rocks and injured his leg. He hoped the bones were not broken, but his femur looked wrong. In the end he swallowed handfuls of pillaged antibiotics and rigged his leg in bandage of old man's beard lichen and a sapling splint.

The memory of the warmth, when the light above was golden and kind, kept him moving forward. The cold was endless. It brought him to his knees, desperate and afraid, he prayed to make it. He lost track of the days, he trekked the same routes between trees, checking snares, looking into holes in the ice, navigating the same stars in the sky. He had to remind himself to actually see the forms and shapes, the old Forestry Lookout, the train tracks partially hidden under snow, and a nearly collapsed fishing hut on the lake. Sometimes, he'd find a note in one of the old cabins he found a grocery list, or a train timetable.

He remembered the sun when one yellowed piece of paper read: _When the summer was nearing its end, and the cattails turned to fluff, we blew our wishes to the sky. Always to come back. Always._

When he lost track of how many pale mornings he greeted, he found an old man after nightfall. The bearded old man sat warmed himself in front of a bonfire near the ruined Hydro Dam. The flames reflected in his glasses, shielding his eyes from the lights above. Max felt the skin across his leg tighten and fester, and was almost lucid enough to carry a conversation with the Elder.

"These are confusing times." The old man said, with a voice like water echoing in a cave. "I've seen too many things. I have seen this before. We sinned, and now we are laid bare. Her warnings went unheeded." Max asked who 'she' was and the Ancient simply grunted. "Mother nature."

He had not seen the old man since that night -- when the aurora spun through the skies like a dragon. The fallen twigs littering the woods around the lake felt like his bones as he stepped upon them, dry and cold. Max orbited the frozen lake like a starving train, trailing his rifle and his leg. The glittering eyes of wolves winked in the distance, waiting for him, he also found a kinship with them. Like him they were circling, waiting for an opportunity to consume.

He fought to break through the fog and chill of medications and snow. His mind felt frozen, clogged, bloated like a corpse. Max distantly wondered if the old man still lived. Each step came harder and heavier as he hunted. Pain radiated from his leg, through his empty belly as he struggled, his rifle an extension of him. What had he done before the snow and the stars settled in? He hungered, but also to connect with others since he had seen the Elder. But the voices that echoed in his head were only his own as Max made another circuit of the lake. Mother Nature was crushing him, squeezing life from his flesh, with her claws and fangs.

The wind and stars were his companions now. He dredged the icy lake bottom only to find the disintegrating skeletons of fish. The stars glinted, tiny splinters in his eyes as he weakened, too feeble to smash the frozen lake anymore. Pain crashed in waves against his living shoreline, drowning out the ache of hunger. 

Max struggled back to his cabin.

In his delirium, he saw lights in the shadows of evergreens, moving darkness menaced sparkling teeth. He would take the hand that Mother Nature offered to him. He slipped on a faint scar of trail and tumbled down snow-covered hill and into a small valley. He struggled to get up, but exhaustion at last sapped and suffocated him. Birch trees stood silently by, his final sentinels as exposure drugged him. The snow was mercifully cold against his burning leg.

His breathing slowed, and the vapor stopped rising from his mouth, icy crystals gathered on his beard.

From the dusk, dark shapes scented the air and slipped hungrily down into the valley. The icy fangs that split his cold body raw transformed into a soothing touch, the harsh wind a mollifying whisper.

The sympathetic sky laid

a snowy blanket upon him.

The chorus of

the pack

filled his ears.

They eased him into the long dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [A Note Left Behind](https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/A_Note_Left_Behind).


End file.
